


Art, Like Dying

by resolute



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Kara being Kara in other words, Self-Destruction, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-13
Updated: 2008-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-10 02:23:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5565601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resolute/pseuds/resolute
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karl and Kara have been friends a long time. Still, he hadn't realized how good for Kara a war was going to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Art, Like Dying

Helo doesn't remember a time when he wasn't saying it. _"C'mon, Kara, you don't mean that."_ I sure as frakking hell do, she would say. Or, he'd say, _"Leave it, guys, Starbuck didn't mean it!"_ , and she'd spit on his words and throw herself past him, sweat and wild eyes and split knuckles. And people would think he was dumb, because anyone could see Starbuck meant it all. Meant the words and the attack and meant to take what was coming to her.  
  
The war was good for her. Helo hadn't expected that. He'd never thought the war would be good for anybody. But then he'd never seen her apartment. He limped in slowly as Kara pushed past him. It was a risk, coming here now. The Cylons knew they were around, had to be watching for them to go to familiar places. Didn't they? But they had to rest a little. Get a little sleep, something to eat.  
  
Helo watched as Kara turned on some music, he listened to her voice, rough and choppy after the fight with the Cylon skinjob. Looking around, it was like he'd never met Kara before. Starbuck didn't listen to flutes. Starbuck didn't paint, or read poetry. Starbuck didn't cook.  
  
Nope, Kara didn't cook.  
  
"You got _one_ package of noodles, you don't believe in groceries?" he asked from the kitchenette, as Kara paced around her home like it was suffocating her. It was an octo, in the part of the city by the disused heavy freight lines. One of the old warehouses cut up into the standard four, eight, or twelve units. The high ceilings and poured concrete walls were cold in the winter, sweaty in the summer, and would have been sterile. Would have been, except for the paint. The art.  
  
 _This one time, right after Kara got stationed at the flight school, Helo got them tickets to a Picon-Saggitaron game. Kara pointed to the Saggitaron team as they walked in. "Look at them," she said. Not very quietly, either. "They aren't afraid of getting hurt." She put all her money on the Saggitarons to not just win, but double the spread.  
  
Kara walked away from the betting-tower with her money in one fist. She grinned and stuffed a handful of cubit notes down the front of his pants. Not noticing or caring about what her hand touched on the way in and out. "Always bet on the guy who does his art like he's gonna cut somebody up," she told him, jamming the remaining cubits in her pocket. "Pyramid, or flying, or at the range, or poetry, or anything. Bet on the guy who's gonna be perfect if he has to kill **you** to do it."  
  
"Yes, Elder Thrace," Helo said, shoving her away as they walked along the street to the bar. "Got any other wisdom for me? Anything you picked up in flight school?"  
  
"Frak you," Kara replied. She punched him in the arm, hard enough to hurt. "Who I picked up I'm not sharing. And you don't want him anyway. Still screwing your pilot? Arachne, or whatever?"  
  
Helo shook his head. "No, Arianne transferred. I got some new pilot, a hotshot. Boomer."  
  
Kara pushed open the door to the tavern. "Does he fly like he's gonna kill you if you frak him up?"  
  
"I guess." Helo hadn't thought about it. "Boomer's a girl, though," he corrected. "I guess she does, yeah. She flies like she's in a contest and I don't know the rules."  
  
"I like her already."_  
  
Standing in the narrow space between the stove and the couch, Helo thought he knew a little more what Kara meant. The paint on her living room wall was like a dying thing. The colors reminded him of a Raptor crash he saw during his familiarization tour of the hanger, during his training. Colors, everywhere. The hydraulic fluid and oil splashed over the brightly color-coded fittings, rainbow sheen of jet fuel catching the sunlight before it caught fire. It was beautiful. The Chief had slapped him on the back of the head to get his attention. The wreck was powerful and beautiful and terrible all at once. Just like the funeral two days later. He hadn't known the pilots. Powerful, and beautiful and terrible, all at once.  
  
Helo looked at Kara, closing her eyes where she sat on the low, broken two-seat. He shrugged and dropped into the couch opposite her. Leaned back. Watching Kara through half-closed eyes while she slept. Under the mandala.  
  
Helo woke up on the couch when Kara poked him. "Come on, princess." She walked past him. Kara always looked like she was stumbling. Looked like she was sloppy, or drunk, or both. There was something about Kara that got all over things and then stayed there, like the smell of jet fuel on your gloves. She was messy and dirty and not even paying attention at all, until she grinned and skunked your ass. Nothing like Boomer. Nothing like Sharon.  
  
 _"Nose up! Nose up!"  
  
Boomer and Helo each yanked on one of Kara's arms, forcing her upright as she spewed on the corridor wall. Boomer caught the eye of one of the flight deck trainees. "Jeep," she said sharply. "Help an officer out. Buckets and mops are in the head." She stared at the kid until the girl lurched into action, sprinting toward the door at the end of the hall.  
  
"That's not nice, Sir," Helo said, jerking the mumbling Starbuck further along. "Not a jeep's job."  
  
"They gotta learn sometime," Boomer replied, grunting at the weight. "You never cleaned up after an officer? And they promoted you anyway?"  
  
"Of course I did. But, it's still not nice." The two of them maneuvered Kara into her bunk.  
  
Sharon grinned at Helo. She reached across Kara to slap Helo's cheek. Lightly. "Aw, Helo thinks I'm nice," she said. Her eyes were very bright.  
  
Helo broke the eye contact before he had a reason to do it. "Frak you, Sir," he said. "And frak you, too, Starbuck, Sir." He grabbed her shirt and yanked it off over her head, trying to avoid getting vomit on his hands.  
  
"Aw, you liked it," Kara muttered, as Sharon helped Helo with the problem of undressing Kara. Sharon burst out laughing and raised her eyebrow at Helo. Not asking the question._  
  
"Princess?" Helo stood, stretching, and stepped over to Kara. She was at the tiny kitchenette. Staring. Helo rolled his eyes and gently pushed her out of the way. "Go on, then. Siddown." He set her on a rickety barstool. Not asking where she got it it the first place. The legs had holes at the bottom where they were meant to be screwed into the floor, and the paint was chipped and abused. Helo frowned as he found a package of extremely stale crackers, the quick-pot noodles, a few Picon onions that had dried instead of rotting. He turned on the stove top, glad to see the heating element was working. "You still have power," he said.  
  
"I do?" Kara blinked. "Cylons must've turned it on. To the whole city or something. I didn't have power when I shipped out."  
  
"Lords of Kobol," Helo swore, glancing at Kara as he cut the small, green onions with his belt knife. "So, the brig was a step up for you, again? I thought you were done with that, Kara." He stopped, hearing himself, the worry and caring. He sounded like a scolding wife. That never worked with Kara.  
  
Kara caught the tone. She leaned back, overly casual. The exaggerated relaxation that meant she was ready to fight. "I take it back about you being a princess," she drawled. "You're more like a bit-"  
  
"Frak off, Thrace," Helo said, spinning to face her. "Nobody can care about you?" He stepped towards her, one foot nearly touching her boot. "Nobody can say the obvious? Well the obvious is, we're all we got, here, and it matters to me how you are, and what's going on in your frakking head, and you never _told_ me you painted, so if I'm wondering if I ever frakking knew you, you gotta forgive me since the mother of my kid's a frakking toaster, all right?"  
  
He stopped, leaning over the much shorter Starbuck. She hadn't moved as he advanced, hadn't dropped the frak-you grin as Helo's voice had gotten louder and louder. She sucked at her lip for a moment, considering her words as Helo glared down at her. "Didn't know you were that hard up for new appliances, Karl," she said slowly. "I would'a bought you a new new kitchen set, or something. With your money, of course, after I beat your ass at cards again. You didn't have to grow 'em yourself."  
  
Helo's fist was through the shelf next to Kara's head before he really noticed. Kara, Kara never flinched while he pulled his hand back, bit of shelf and plastic falling in her hair.  
  
And she didn't swing back.  
  
Helo stepped away, shaking out his hand and breathing hard. "You know I don't do that, Kara," he muttered. "Not me. Find somebody else to use you like a punching bag."  
  
Kara didn't move. Her smile didn't waver.  
  
 _"I'm always drunk when you pull this crap, Starbuck," Helo hollered, ducking the fist aimed at his face. "Why's'at again?"  
  
"'Cause you have a stick up your ass the rest of the time, Helo."  
  
Helo grabbed his opponent in a bearish hug. This wasn't war, this was cards. Though Kara didn't seem to know the difference. Helo kicked another pilot and looked for the dirty-blonde hair. There. Enough. "Enough, Starbuck," he said, stumbling over. "You don't mean it. We're done." But Kara drew her fist back, arm cocked, elbow high, looking for a damaging blow on the Raptor ECM - Skulls, that was his handle - trapped under her. Helo went for the grab to stop her. He missed Kara's arm but knocked her away from Skulls anyway. "Frak it Kara, we're done -- "  
  
He had to wrestle her off, in the end. Drunk didn't make her any less vicious. Helo got Kara to the hall, to the head. Shoved her into a stall. Kara came flying out of it, all fists and spit and Helo could see the whites of her eyes all around. "Frak it Kara!" Helo held her off as best he could, but Starbuck, Starbuck got her knuckles into his throat and he went down, gagging. He fell with a hand on his throat.  
  
"What the frak?!" Kara stood over him, panting. "Hit me back, you frakhead!"_  
  
"Yeah. You don't." Kara slid off the stool and stepped towards the two-burner stove. She turned her back on Helo and threw the onions into the pan. "How come?"  
  
Helo put his hands on his knees and bent over, blowing out his breath loudly before straightening. "How come I don't kick the shit out of you like the rest?" He walked back over. "Gods, Thrace, you're burning the onions. I didn't think that was possible." Helo pushed her out of the way and grabbed a wooden spoon. He moved the onions around in the oil, stirring briskly. "I don't know. You're a good guy, Kara. I guess that's all."  
  
"Guy? I'm a good guy?" Kara elbowed Helo and when he turned, lifted her shirt up. Flashing him.  
  
Helo turned back to the stove. "Aw, cut it out," he said, grinning. "Not like I forgot."  
  
"Thought you might've. 'Guy,' and all."  
  
"Figure of speech. Poetic, thought you might understand."  
  
"You're just all kinds of mad you didn't know I painted, aren't you?"  
  
"You might'a said." Helo crunched up the noodles, some crackers. He dumped them in the frying oil and added the powdered garlic.   
  
"You might'a said you could cook."  
  
 _They'd both been drunk. Obvious, sure. If Kara wasn't on duty, or about to be on duty, she was drinking. Helo could take it or leave it himself. He never mentioned, but it all tasted the same to him. Ambrosia, homebrew, beer, or the swill out of the cooling ducts -- it all tasted the same._  
  
It didn't taste any better on Kara's lips. On her tongue which she was shoving into his mouth like she was spearfishing on Picon. She laughed and grabbed his ears and shoved him lower in the bed. Long legs, it was easier to kneel on the floor and grab her thighs. Helo yanked her towards him, towards his face.  
  
"The frak you doing?" Kara half-sat, glaring. "Your pants stuck?"  
  
"No, I'm just gonna get you off firs-"  
  
"Oh, gods no," Kara said, laughing. She grabbed him and pulled. "You're like some kind of girl, you know that? So frakking considerate, gods above!"  
  
"I hear a lotta girls like that," Helo said. He shucked his pants anyway. Managed to not fall on his ass, either.  
  
"Pussies," Kara answered, giggling. "Little princess pussies. Now shut up and be a man."  
  
Helo pulled Kara's pants lower. "Not like you mean it or anything," he replied.  
  
Helo split the food into two bowls. He pushed one towards Kara. "Okay, maybe there wasn't a good time to talk. Or anything."  
  
"I don't remember talking, no." Kara picked up the bowl and dumped half the contents into her mouth. Her eyes widened. "This tastes like food."  
  
"Uh, yeah. Food. I cooked it." Helo scooped some up with his fingers.  
  
"But you made it out of crap I had here."  
  
"Pretend it's a magic trick." Helo waved his fingers theatrically at Kara as she finished off the bowl. "Magic. Princess magic."  
  
Kara turned towards the sink and opened the spigot. She stuck her head under and drank hastily. Big gulps. Helo watched her. Always, with Kara -- big gulps. If she was a Cylon, well -- then she was one like Sharon. A person. All this, the life here -- it was too stupidly piss-poor to be a fake.  
  
"I guess it doesn't matter that much," Helo muttered.  
  
Kara stood, wiping the water from her mouth with her sleeve. "What? What matters?"  
  
"Forget it." Helo rinsed his bowl in the sink. "Doesn't matter." He looked up. "We ready to go? Find this airfield? Get you and your mystical arrow back home, like a frakking Thesian reborn?"  
  
"Bring it on, princess," Kara replied. She slung the arrow over her jacket as Helo tightened his boots.  
  
She looked happy. Almost. Maybe as happy as Kara was ever going to get. Helo watched her grab the maps. Filthy and exhausted and eyes clear, clear blue. The war was good for her. Helo shook his head, a smile on his face. "Consider it on, Starbuck. Consider. It. On."


End file.
